Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 10 February 2022
99. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his proposals to alleviate the crisis facing family farmers arising from rapidly rising costs in fertiliser, feed, energy and other inputs. [6885/22]
View answer102. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will respond to the high price of fertiliser, which is having a major impact on farming families. [7037/22]
View answerThere has been much discussion in recent times around price inflation. For well over a year now, farmers have been speaking about the challenges they have been facing with regard to rising input costs. Fertiliser costs in particular are having a devastating impact. There are challenges across the board in that feed and energy prices are rising drastically and almost all input prices have negated any stabilisation or increases in the prices farmers receive. I would like the Minister to outline this morning what the Government is going to do in response.
Fertiliser prices have increased significantly in recent months and Irish prices are among the highest globally. These high prices are likely to continue, with uncertainty around supply and distribution and, in particular, international restrictions on ammonium nitrate. This will impact most on non-organic small family farms, which are already squeezed with any profits made from, for example, meat prices being eroded by rising fertiliser costs. I ask the Minister to outline the actions being taken to support family farms.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 99 and 102 together.
I thank the Deputies for the questions. I am acutely aware of the impact of rising input costs on farmers, family farms and businesses, as highlighted in the Deputies' questions. The very significant rise in fertiliser prices in the past year, particularly in recent months, is concerning. There are a number of factors at play in the market, including energy prices remaining well above January 2021 levels. Increased global demand, especially from the big grain-producing countries, controls of fertiliser exports from large fertiliser producing countries, increased transport costs and EU-imposed tariffs and duties on certain third country imports are all impacting prices here for our farmers.
I have been following the rising fertiliser price issue closely for the past number of months. In October 2021, I tasked Teagasc to lay out a credible roadmap to assist farmers in the short term as well as offering a long-term solution in the move to reduce dependency on chemical fertiliser. I launched the soils, nutrients and fertiliser campaign at Teagasc in Ballyhaise on 26 January last. This is a strategy that can ease the price pressure on farmers and will be good for the environment and for farmers' pockets, particularly in seeking to address the challenge of increased fertiliser prices.
I have also raised the issues highlighted by the Deputes a number of times at European Council level. At the November Agriculture and Fisheries Council, I again raised the increasing challenge faced by farmers due to the rising costs of inputs. I called on the EU Commission to consider seriously all options to ease the pressure on farmers at this time, including the question of whether the imposition of anti-dumping duties on fertiliser imports continues to be appropriate and for this matter to be examined and addressed as a matter of priority.
Following the November meeting, I wrote to the EU Commissioner, Janusz Wojciechowski, requesting that the Commission's assessment of the ongoing appropriateness of anti-dumping duties on fertilisers be completed as soon as possible. The EU Commission responded on 26 January that it is still collecting information to establish the relevant facts. In the meantime, Teagasc will continue to work with farmers through the soils, nutrients and fertiliser campaign to help farmers to adapt to the current fertiliser market and support them to make informed decisions on what is best for their farms.
Teagasc has put together a comprehensive information pack for farmers and their advisers - a compendium of 20 fact sheets - to optimise the use of plant nutrients and to help farmers address the challenge of maintaining their farm outputs in the face of rising fertiliser costs and reduced availability. In addition, a new €1 million initiative by my Department will support the planting of multi-species swards to reduce dependence on fertiliser this year and in future years. A pilot soil sampling programme was introduced at the end of last year, which will provide farmers with comprehensive details of soil health and soil condition on their farms. I hope, as a result of that, to apply an appropriate level of fertiliser or organic manure to reflect the needs of the soil and to maximise growth.
As the Deputies can appreciate, Ireland is a relatively small market in respect of fertiliser sales and their usage compared with many of our EU neighbours. As a result, Irish fertiliser companies are price-takers that are dependent on global fertiliser supply and demand. It is to be hoped we may see a levelling off at least of some of these contributing rising price factors this year. This is not to diminish the pressures being faced by our farmers today. The initiatives I have introduced should support farmers to reduce their dependence on fertiliser. I assure this House that both I and my Department will continue to monitor the situation closely. I am examining all options to ease the burden on farmers in the short and long term. There is no doubt this is the real challenge facing farm families this year. I am very much of aware of that and I know the Deputies are keen to ensure it is central to our thinking at the start of the year.
There is nothing in what the Minister said that will allow me or any other Deputy to convince the farmers that have been in touch with us that the Government understands the challenges they are facing and that it is taking action to resolve them. Essentially, the Minister has highlighted very well what the problem is, but he has not outlined sufficiently what the Government is going to do about it. Letters to the European Commission are well and good and are important in regard to fertiliser costs, but my question dealt with much broader issues in terms of input costs that are facing our farming families.
I will focus on one specific issue. Many of the challenges farmers are facing can be directly attributed to Brexit and the impact it has had. Will the Minister ensure the Brexit adjustment reserve is utilised to provide direct support to farming families to meet the rising input costs? To date, the only people in the agrifood sector who have got a cent of the Brexit adjustment reserve fund are processors. Larry Goodman and the meat factories have been getting money towards promotion of their product while the people who need support most have not got anything as of yet. Will the Minister change that?
I thank the Minister. Any measures that will immediately address the prices will make a big difference to families. I welcome the Minister's intention to address Irish agriculture's dependency on chemical fertilisers. It represents the type of intensive farming that has been forcing farmers to do more and more for less and less for a long time now, only to the great benefit of those fertiliser companies.
I think the term "sustainable agriculture" has become almost meaningless. It is frequently used by the Department and in the industry to describe its opposite. The term needs to mean practices that can be maintained using natural approaches that use the strength of our soil and climate rather than leaving farmers reliant on chemical imports. Our soil fertility is an incredible natural asset that needs to be respected and managed correctly. The Department must start ensuring nutrient management through the use of organic practices and we desperately need greater knowledge transfer in this area. The soils, nutrients and fertiliser campaign the Minister talked about is a welcome development but we need additional measures to foster far greater sustainable soil management practices. This change must happen and the sooner it happens the easier it will be for farmers. We need the information and the knowledge transfer.
I thank the Deputies. Deputy Carthy can see from the actions I took at the end of last year in asking Teagasc to do a significant roadmap for how we can make even more efficient use of our organic fertiliser that this is an issue of which I am aware. I tasked Teagasc with that last year and published the roadmap two weeks ago. I am very much aware of this emerging issue and continue to monitor it closely.
There are few farms in the country without the capacity to be more efficient in the use of organic nutrients and more than ever this year, it will be important we do that. As Deputy Cairns said, in the medium and long term, this will cause us to take stock of how we can further reduce our dependence on chemical fertiliser while keeping up productivity. We must focus on soil fertility and multi-species sward, in which there is tremendous potential. That does not take away from the immediate challenge and while I am supporting further take-up of multi-species sward this year and further attention being paid to soil fertility, there is an immediate challenge around the crisis. I am looking at all options but as of now, the advice from Teagasc is something to which all farmers should turn their minds. I will continue to engage closely with the sector on this important issue for all farm families this year.
Of course we need to improve efficiencies and reduce dependency on artificial fertiliser. However, we need solutions in the here and now. I asked the Minister about the Brexit adjustment reserve fund and he did not mention it in his response. I will give him another example of how the Government can set out a clear sign of its intentions. In May, it is the Government's intention to increase the carbon taxes again. That increases virtually all of the input costs for farmers. People might think farmers are exempt from the carbon tax in terms of their own fuel but the truth is that many farmers use farm contractors to carry out work on their farms and they are not exempt. Increases in carbon tax also mean increases in the cost of farm contractors and every single input on a farm. Will the Minister, who has a responsibility to protect our family farms, bring a message to Cabinet that the proposed increase in carbon tax in May must be suspended, if not ceased altogether?
I acknowledge the proactive approach the Minister is taking. I agree with Deputy Carthy that we need a more robust, short-term solution. When we are talking about medium- and long-term solutions, it is important to acknowledge that difficult times like this can also be opportunities. Farmers, as we know, are some of the most innovative people. The Department needs to look at ways of embedding methods and efficiencies which are coming out of the rising costs of fertiliser. Slurry and farmyard manure can be used in low phosphorous and potassium index areas. There are other options, such as grazing management and multi-species swards, which the Minister talked about. We also know it is long proven that cover crops of clover fix more nitrogen than those chemical imports on which farmers are spending so much money. We have knowledge transfer programmes and that fact should be embedded into them immediately so farmers can start learning how to do it. Farms need to be supported to move to this more sustainable model. It must happen now. We need more short-term solutions.
I thank the Deputies. Deputy Carthy asked about the Brexit adjustment reserve. I am open to hearing any suggestions he has specifically on that issue. This is obviously a Europe-wide issue. I do not think the energy prices relate directly to Brexit because every country is experiencing increases. Indeed, fertiliser prices are a challenge across the world.
For the Brexit adjustment reserve in particular, we must be able to show specifically the correlation between Brexit and the thing we are intervening in to use the Brexit adjustment reserve for. I would welcome any ideas or suggestions the Deputy has around that. My team is looking at all options for how we can use the Brexit adjustment reserve and if the Deputy would like to feed into that with a specific idea on the issue, I would welcome it. I am keen to find any way we can use the Brexit adjustment reserve to support farmers. As the Deputy knows, given my form, all the schemes I have introduced and all the funding I am bringing to agriculture, that is my core and key objective.
I know Sinn Féin supports the carbon tax. It used not to support it but it does now. However, it does not support the marginal increase that has been proposed. Sinn Féin tries to put a message out there that it is against it-----
Will the Minister answer the question?
-----but the reality is the party is in favour of the carbon tax. It is only the very narrow and marginal increase Sinn Féin is against.
What is the Government going to do in May? Is it going to increase the carbon tax or not?
Deputy Carthy had his time. The Minister without interruption, please.
It is obviously part of Sinn Féin's plan to transition to government. It intends to go from totally opposing something and everything, as in the case of the carbon tax, to now only opposing the marginal increase.
I ask the Chair to direct the Minister to answer the question.
The Deputy should not direct me to do anything. The Minister to conclude.
From the agricultural point of view, the sector is one of few where farm family enterprises have a double counting mechanism so that increases in carbon tax do not impact within the farm. There is a challenge there relating to contractors, where it will have an impact.
